Wraith No More

Chapters

Chapter Two: Lights in the Wood
Chapter Three: Gilded Cage
Chapter One: Stolen Moments

Chapter Two: Lights in the Wood

They set out from Sugarcube Corner the following morning, taking Twinkleshine’s SUV. They had all dressed for the imminent hike through Whitetail National Forest. Twinkleshine packed a large bag full of water jugs and trail snacks. She had stacked her trunk high with a tent, chairs, and coolers full of lunch fixings.

She asked Vinyl to help keep Minuette out of the food on the ride up. In response, Vinyl opened her laptop, pulled up a set of samples, and asked Minuette what her favorite movie was. Together, the two cut a rough sixty-minute hip-hop concept album about body snatchers in a cyberpunk future.

Shortly after completing the first pass, Minuette guzzled a gallon of water and the two fell asleep.

Lemon borrowed Moon Dancer’s files and read them voraciously. She kept her earbuds in, swaying gently to her own music as she studied, ignoring the chaos in the backseat.

Moon Dancer stared into her phone, watching and rewatching the same video. A small notepad at her wrist collected notes like the odometer gathered miles.

Twinkleshine watched all this from her seat and drove on. After almost two hours, she pulled off the road.

“Alright, girls. We’re here.”

Vinyl cursed under her breath, but slid on her sunglasses and stepped out of the SUV. Minuette was already out, helping Moon Dancer unload her recording gear. Lemon Hearts finished the page she was reading and tucked the folder into her backpack.

Moon Dancer stretched as Minuette and Twinkleshine set up the base camp. “I found where the witnesses saw her last while looking into this over the last few days. Cross-referencing the network data, she had to come through here. We’re going to find her trail.”

Moon Dancer set down kits for each of them and talked them through their contents while Twinkleshine and Lemon handed them out. Soon, each of them was carrying a knapsack with two disposable cameras, a compass, a digital recorder, and a fresh notebook. As they were passed out, Twinkleshine added water bottles, fruit, and small bags of trail mix to them.

“Cameras are to catch any weirdness you see,” Moon Dancer said. “Lights, orbs, shapes in the dust, anything. Recorders are for if we get split, so we have a log, or if you hear something strange. Notebooks are obvious. Come on, this way.”

“Uh, hey,” Minuette chuckled, a tinge of nervousness. “Someone should stay here and, uh, watch all this stuff, right?” She started to sit in one of the chairs. “Yeah. I’ll, uh—”

Vinyl grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along. “Come on, Min. That’s no way for the savior of the human race to act.”

Minuette struggled ineffectually against her. “But that’s in the dark, pod-dominated future! And that’s something we just made up!”

Moon Dancer huffed. “No one’s forcing you—”

Twinkleshine coughed once and spoke. “Minuette, please. That would mean I’d have to stay, too, to make sure nothing happened to you. Who’d look after the others?”

Minuette’s face lit up, and she pulled away from Vinyl. “Great idea! How about none of us go into the dark and spooky old woods?”

Lemon and Vinyl spoke over each other.

“It’s the middle of the day!”

“It’s not that spooky.”

Minuette stamped her boot and balled her fists at her side. Her eyes shone bright with tears. “Look, I can’t! Something really awful happened in there, and I don’t want it to happen to us!”

There was silence for a while. Each of them looked from Minuette to each other and back.

Moon Dancer sighed. “Fine. If it—”

Twinkleshine cut Moon Dancer off with a wave of her hand, stepped forward, and hugged Minuette. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Minuette’s voice trembled with the effort of holding her tears back. “I didn’t want to let you down in front of the Wondercolt. And Moon Dancer looked like she might eat me if I bailed. But I... It’s weird. Something doesn’t want us here. I mean, it really doesn’t want us here.”

There was a shuffle of canvas, and the click of a recorder switching on. Moon Dancer was at Twinkleshine’s elbow, a look of concern crossing her face. “Hey, hold on. Can you explain how you feel?”

Minuette scrubbed at her face and gave Twinkleshine a brief squeeze before pushing away. “I feel just like an itty-bitty worm on an awfully big hook.”

Vinyl cracked her fingers before striking a boxing stance. “Hey, tell you what. I’ll stick by you and keep you safe. Anything that wants to spirit you away’ll have to get through me.”

Lemon and Moon Dancer laughed.

Minuette chuckled nervously along with them. “Alright, fine. But you’d better not go anywhere, Miss Scratch, or you’ll have an ex-biggest-fan-ever!”

With that, she followed Vinyl closely as they all entered the cool stillness of the woods. Moon Dancer took charge, parting the branches that hung heavy over the path. Twinkleshine took up the rear, making sure the group stayed together. They hiked in silence for several minutes.

“So,” said Lemon Hearts, “what do you get out of this, Miss Scratch?”

Vinyl hopped over a small stream, helped Minuette across, then rubbed her chin. “The usual, I guess. Justice for Cherry, fixing my rep. Never had a girl taken from one of my shows before.” She frowned and shook her head, wincing at the memory. Shortly, she caught Minuette’s eyes and smiled from behind her large sunglasses. “New friends, I suppose.”

Moon Dancer made a dismissive sound.

Vinyl punched her lightly in the arm and glanced back at Minuette. “How about you? No offence, but this doesn’t seem like something any of you would care about.”

Moon Dancer’s dismissive sound lengthened and deepened.

“You know what I mean, Doc,” Vinyl sighed. “You’re here for the weird woojums. But you three? This ain’t Crystal Prep’s style.”

“What, we can’t be concerned for one of our former rivals?” Lemon said, swallowing a sip of water. She recapped the bottle and tucked it back in her bag.

“The day—” Moon Dancer grunted, beads of sweat on her brow, “— a Shadowbolt— cares for anyone else—”

Twinkleshine cleared her throat. “Miss Dancer, are you alright?”

“Never— better. Let’s— keep going.”

They continued on in silence for a while. The forest darkened around them as the trees grew closer overhead.

Finally, they came to a clearing. Moon Dancer threw herself onto a large rock and tore open her knapsack. She downed her water in several long gulps, then threw the empty bottle roughly back inside.

Twinkleshine raised an eyebrow and handed her another. “Be careful, Miss Dancer. We don’t know how much farther we have to go.”

Moon Dancer took several uneven breaths and ran her hand along her side. “I know. It’s just…” She sighed. “I haven’t done field work like this in a while. I’m a little out of shape.”

“No kidding!” Minuette chirped. “It’s like watching a marshmallow fall uphill!”

“Hey!”

Twinkleshine opened her mouth, but Vinyl responded first. She caught Minuette in a half-nelson and ground her knuckles into Minuette’s head. “Alright, hero. That was rude! Apologize!”

“Ow! Ouch! Owie! Okay! Sorry! I wasn’t trying to be mean, but—”

Twinkleshine placed her hand on Vinyl’s shoulder. She stopped mid-noogie.

“Minuette always says what’s on her mind. It isn’t always nice, politic, or appropriate, but she doesn’t mean to be insulting.”

“Yeah!” Minuette said, struggling to get out of Vinyl’s hold. “You goof! You’re giving me too much slack over—” she slipped out and tapped Vinyl’s nose. “—here. Watch your left next time.”

Vinyl laughed, nonplussed. “Y’all are some strange people. Team Mom, Hero, and Bookworm helping Doc here hunt some ghosts.”

“Monsters,” Minuette said, rubbing her head. “Or maybe curses, I guess.”

Moon Dancer opened her bag of trail mix and snacked on a raisin. “So, Minuette. If you’re all about this radical honesty stuff, give it to me straight.”

“Okay!” Minuette said cheerfully. She took a deep breath and spoke rapidly:

“We’re out here to make us look better. Twinkleshine figures that if we help solve this, the nonsense between us and the Wondercolts will blow over. I want to agree, but I’m more curious about the magical logistics. Like, I know about the Friendship Games, but I haven’t seen anything that would convince me that this is related, like Lemon said.”

She paused and gasped for air. “Speaking of, she thinks we’re all wasting our time. And I’m hungry.”

She sat down in the grass and swallowed a handful of trail mix. “Mm! This is better than your normal stuff, Twinkle. Really looking to impress the new girls, huh?”

Twinkleshine was almost quick enough to hide her blush. “Best foot forward, Minuette. We are—”

“— Shadowbolts, yeah, I know. We all know. So what?”

The heat in Twinkleshine’s cheeks increased as she raised her voice. “We have a reputation, missy. Remember that.”

“Yeah. Nah. See, what actually matters here is that Moon Dancer’s successfully dodged the question about what she gets out of this. Or had. Sorry.”

Moon Dancer groaned. “I don’t think—”

In a burst of motion, Vinyl shoved Moon Dancer off of her rock and snapped a picture of the forest. She wound the film back and cursed under her breath.

The others jumped at her outburst, Minuette landing on her back, while Lemon leapt in front of Twinkleshine.

“What the heck was that?” Moon Dancer shouted from a clover patch.

“Shh.” Vinyl snapped off her glasses and searched the woods.

“Don’t shush—!”

“Sh!” Vinyl glared at Moon Dancer and pressed a finger to her lips, her magenta eyes reflecting anxious concern. She turned back to the woods, keeping her camera ready.

Moon Dancer rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest, and sulked.

The forest was absolutely still. Twinkleshine heard her own breathing, soft and furtive in the silent dappled shadows.

No one moved for several long moments. Slowly, the normal insect sounds resumed, washing over them in a wave.

Twinkleshine felt an odd elation, as if she had just avoided detection in a game of hide-and-seek.

Vinyl kicked a clump of sod and cursed again.

“Care to explain why I’m freezing my butt on the damp ground?” asked Moon Dancer, a little louder than necessary.

Vinyl slid her glasses back on and helped Moon Dancer to her feet. “Dunno. Might have been nothing. Keep it down, though. I don’t think we’re alone out here.”

Minuette kipped up and rubbed her back. “Ow. The heck did I land on?”

She knelt down, ran her fingers through the long grass, and uttered a small noise of surprise.

“Hey, girls? What are the odds that someone else lost their phone around here?”

She held up a narrow black plastic rectangle. The glass face was an intricate network of cracks and fissures.

“Lemme see that,” Vinyl said, crossing the clearing in two long strides. Minuette handed it over, and they peered at it together.

Etched above the charging port was an emblem of two cherries connected by a single stem.

* * * *

They secured the cell phone in Lemon’s knapsack, and continued on. There was no more laughing, joking, or talking beyond what was necessary. All held their cameras either ready, or slung around a wrist for ease of access. Almost half an hour later, they had found the next clearing. After a brief discussion, they agreed that they needed to verify their location. Their phone signals remained dead, despite occasional flutters.

The girls stood around a tall tree, watching as Vinyl scrambled from branch to branch. Minuette rolled an apple down her arm, popped it up into the air with her elbow, and caught it. She did this twice more before crunching into it.

As she watched, Twinkleshine noticed that the sounds of the forest had ebbed again. The only sounds were the scraping of Vinyl’s boots on the bark of the tree and Minuette devouring her apple. She grasped her camera, and glanced at Lemon.

Lemon was already scanning the treeline, camera in hand.

Minuette crunched her apple and pitched the core into the forest.

At the same moment, a shape tore away from the trunk of a large tree and raced into the shadows deeper in the woods. Lemon and Twinkleshine started snapping pictures of it.

Vinyl dropped out of the tree, taking the last ten feet in a single leap. She tore after the form.

“Wait!” called Minuette, chasing after her. “You promised!”

“Idiots!” shouted Moon Dancer, following close behind.

Twinkleshine tossed her camera into her bag, grabbed a small bead from a charm clipped to the front, and fed out some fishing line. She tossed her bag to Lemon, unspooling more of the line. Little colored flags had been tied every five feet or so.

“Just like we practiced for orienteering,” she said, and chased after the other three.

The underbrush crunched and snapped as she raced through the woods. The dusty smell of autumn leaves and the crisp frost stung her nose a little, but she pressed on. She kept Moon Dancer’s irregularly bobbing topknot in view as they chased after Minuette.

Twinkleshine poured on the speed, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and caught up to Moon Dancer.

“What’re— you—” Moon Dancer sputtered, out of breath.

Twinkleshine pressed a small purple flag into Moon Dancer’s hand.

“Stay. I’ll get our friends back.”

“But—!”

Twinkleshine smiled and took off.

She hated running. Thankfully, she knew it would probably be necessary and had dressed accordingly. Her normally free-flowing tresses had been plaited and coiled tightly around her scalp. She adjusted her sun hat so it wouldn’t fly off, but skidded on some fallen leaves. Inattention repaid immediately.

Cursing under her breath, she pulled herself forward on a branch and launched towards Minuette’s receding form.

“Minuette!” she shouted, putting as much authority as she could into each syllable.

Minuette froze, sliding to a stop in a small clearing. Ahead, there was the faint sounds of a scuffle.

Minuette hopped up and down, glancing towards the sounds and back to Twinkleshine.

“Twinkle—!”

“Stay,” Twinkleshine pushed a blue flag into her hand. “Put.”

Minuette sat down in a huff and folded her arms over her chest. “Not fair.”

“Tough.”

Twinkleshine glanced toward the sounds of struggle, and sighed. A rocky outcrop jutted out beyond the tree line. Somewhere behind the curtain of brambles and broken branches, Vinyl was wrestling someone.

Or something.

She pushed past the undergrowth and leapt from rock to rock, descending as carefully as she could.

A shout of triumph drew her attention, making her final three feet a little less dignified than she’d hoped. She landed in a heap at the base of the hill. Inattention took its toll again.

Vinyl had a figure dressed all in black in a headlock. Their sweater’s hood had fallen over their face.

“Gotcha, you—” she glanced up at Twinkleshine’s impact and winced. “Hey, Shine. That looked like it hurt. You okay?”

Twinkleshine dusted herself off. “Just my pride. What do you have there?”

Vinyl tightened her grip, and growled at her captive, “Alright, you weasel. We’re gonna stand up real slow. Try to get away, and you’ll hurt yourself. Get me?”

There was muffled agreement.

The two stood up, with Vinyl setting the pace. The figure was taller than her by several inches and had to bend at the waist to keep from getting strangled.

Twinkleshine frowned. “That’s not entirely necessary, is it? Surely—”

Vinyl shot her a look, but her oversized sunglasses made it hard to read. Twinkleshine shrugged and shook her head.

“She’s the nice girl, punk. I’m the mudhole stomper. You feel like sharing, or do I get my boots on?”

The figure, clearly male by his stature and silhouette, grumbled a little, but nodded.

Twinkleshine gingerly lifted up the boy’s hood. A small gasp of surprise escaped her before she got her composure.

Glaring back at her was her classmate Neon Lights. His normally perfect black hair had been mussed by his fight with Vinyl. His trademark aviators were nowhere to be seen.

“Hi, Twinkle. Get this gorilla off me, yeah?”

She put a thoughtful finger along her jawline and glanced at Vinyl. “Of course, dear.”

He smiled.

“Provided you can tell us why you were sneaking around back there, that is.”

Vinyl grinned and tightened her hold again. Neon made a sound like air slipping out of a balloon.

“Alright, alright! I was hoping to get a look at the party grounds, but I got lost. I heard your discussion about that Wondercolt and figured you’d eventually lead me to the Witherly manor. From there, I could find my way back easy.”

Vinyl snorted derisively. “Yeah. Right. So why’d you run, idiot?”

Neon locked eyes with Twinkleshine, and gestured to Vinyl. “You think a Shadowbolt could just ask for help from Wondercolts? Especially a guy, all alone out here in the woods?”

Vinyl looked to Twinkleshine.

“Let him up. I know him from school. Neon Lights. He’s on the Dean’s List.”

Vinyl pulled her arms away and dusted off her jeans. “Well, alright, Lights. But don’t try anything. This is your one.”

Neon rubbed his neck and turned his head about. He rolled his shoulder, and grunted appreciatively. “Heck of a grip. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

Vinyl turned her face to the sky, reflecting the dappled sunlight off her sunglasses. “I perform in some pretty bad locations sometimes.”

Twinkleshine yanked twice on her fishing line, paused, then yanked again.

“The rest are on their way.”

Neon groaned. “That means Lemon, too, doesn’t it? Dang.”

“It does, indeed.” Twinkleshine said, raising an eyebrow. “Why should that matter?”

Neon fished about in his hoodie, snagged his pair of aviators from the pocket and slumped to the ground. “If she hasn’t told you, I don’t know that I’m the one to—”

Minuette broke the treeline with a crash and cartwheeled down the outcrop. “Hi, Neon! You’re the jerk following us?”

Neon slid his sunglasses back into his hoodie, put his hands on his knees, and stood up. “Hi, Minuette. Don’t suppose you—”

A rock whizzed over his head as he finished his sentence.

“— talked her down. Guess not.”

Lemon stood atop the outcrop, lightly tossing another stone in her hand. “Neon.”

“Lemon.”

Moon Dancer emerged from the trees carrying Twinkleshine’s bag. She sat on a large stone and tried to catch her breath. “What’s— his deal?”

Neon tossed his hands in the air. “Whatever. Look, Lemon, I’m not here to mess with you. I just want to get my bag back from the party grounds.”

Lemon glowered down at him. Twinkleshine couldn’t tell if she was shaking or just trying to catch her breath.

Twinkleshine crossed to Neon anyway. “Neon, honey, where would we find the Witherly manor? With all the racing about, I’m afraid we’ve gotten turned around.”

Neon watched as Moon Dancer and Lemon Hearts climbed down the outcropping. “I think we’re here, actually. This looks familiar. Look, I’ll just be going. I’m clearly—”

Lemon’s rock zipped past his head. “You stay right where I can see you, mister. I trust you about as far as I can throw a piece of cheesecake against a riptide.”

Neon sighed. “Fair enough. I’ll just stand near these Wondercolts, shall I? Away from you and yours?”

Moon Dancer bristled. “I’m Everton Independent Study, buster. The Wondercolt’s over there.”

She waved to Vinyl, who cracked her knuckles and grinned.

Neon sighed, dropped his hands into his pockets, and followed sullenly behind them.

They hiked together in silence, climbing down the rest of the embankment. The eerie edifice of the Witherly manor loomed over them. The shadows cast by the ancient structure fell over them one by one. Twinkleshine shuddered involuntarily as a deeper chill than the woods’s seeped around her jacket.

“Brr. Yup. I wanna go home.” Minuette chafed her arms like she was suddenly freezing.

Neon bounded up the rickety porch steps in one fluid motion, landed with a clatter, and turned to face the others. “I’ve played ball up ‘til now, Lemon. I’m gonna head to the party grounds. I got stuff to do. Good luck on your ghost hunt or whatever.”

Lemon flushed a deep crimson but said nothing.

Minuette waved timidly, “Bye, Neon. Thanks for not being a monster. Well, not a—”

Neon flicked on his aviators and stalked off towards the corn field.

“—you know what I meant.” Minuette finished glumly.

“What was that about?” asked Twinkleshine.

“So, Lemon and Neon—” Minuette started.

“Girls.” Moon Dancer’s voice was flat, but insistent. “You would not believe how little I care. We have important work to do, and I don’t want to have to delay this over some stupid boy.”

The vibrant rage drained slowly out of Lemon’s face. “He’s not worth it. Let’s find a ghost.”

* * * *

The entrance hall had once been opulent. Their footfalls on the marble floor echoed in the dusty air as they entered. Dim sunlight filtered through the leaded came glass panels far overhead, shrouding most of the room in deep shadows. Minuette clicked on her flashlight, and shone it around the massive foyer. Dust and cobwebs danced in the light. The others all followed suit, and soon the room glowed with flitting beams. Minuette glanced from shadow to shadow, only turning to the next when it was clear nothing lurked within.

Their beams revealed a massive set of stairs that swooped up to a landing above, before branching to the east and west, and ending at a pair of large doors. Shrouded in the shadows below the stairs were another pair of double doors to the north and south.

“Wait. How—?” Vinyl spun on her heel, and shone her light on the front door. “But I thought… how am I looking at four doors in… what?”

Lemon whipped out her notebook, and skimmed it. “Er. Yeah. Witherly was a weird guy. Built the whole house so that it’s never a straight ninety degree angle at any corner. Makes the whole place seem off.”

“Makes it really freaking hard to map, too. You think you’re heading east, all you end up is lost,” Moon Dancer grumbled. “Let’s go, we gotta find the study.”

“And since you’re the best paranormal investigator ever, you’ve got a map, right?” Minuette said.

Moon Dancer’s face flared scarlet, and she mumbled into her sweater.

“… What’s that?”

Lemon Hearts glanced skyward for just a moment, and pulled a blue binder out of her knapsack. She whispered into Moon Dancer’s ear, and pressed it into her hand.

Moon Dancer furrowed her brow, listening. “No way!”

“Yeah, National Registry of Historical Buildings,” Lemon said, pointing at the papers within. “See? They had the—”

Moon Dancer fluttered her hand in front of Lemon’s face. “Sh! Okay! We have a starting point!”

Twinkleshine caught Moon Dancer’s eyes. Slowly, she arched one elegantly sculpted eyebrow.

Moon Dancer swallowed, and adjusted her glasses. A slight flush washed over her cheeks. “And, um, thanks, Lemon. This will really help. I hope.”

Twinkleshine beamed.

Moon Dancer gripped her flashlight in her teeth and flipped through page after page of the binder. After a moment, she paused on one, studied it, and grinned.

“This way,” she said, dropping her flashlight into her hand.

Their footfalls clacked off the large marble floor as Moon Dancer led them to the north-facing door. Beyond was a large dining room, once resplendent in mahogany and silver, but now shrouded in dust and cobwebs. Thirteen seats were arranged around the colossal table, and more than a few had moldering cloth napkins or tarnished silverware still arranged before them. There were huge candelabras positioned between every fourth setting, but these also were cloaked in cobwebs. To one side of the table, a large grandfather clock stood a silent watch.

A gallery overlooked the whole room, running the length of the eastern wall, while the western held massive picture windows that ran the length of the wall. The light shining through these windows bathed everything in a warm glow.

Minuette giggled faintly, and ran her hand through the shafts of light. The dust motes spun and danced around her fingers.

Lemon Hearts and Moon Dancer brushed aside a few place settings near the foot of the table, and laid out the blueprints from Lemon’s folder. They worked at it like a jigsaw puzzle, arranging pieces where they made the most sense.

Twinkleshine drifted towards Vinyl, and smiled.

Vinyl popped out an earbud and smiled back.

“You were pretty quick back there, going after Neon.”

Vinyl chuckled. “Yeah. Didn’t know who it was when I started, though. Hope I didn’t hurt him.”

Twinkleshine turned to face the others. Lemon and Moon Dancer were hunched over the map, twisting pages this way and that. Minuette had paused near the northeastern corner of the room and was gazing intently into the shadows there.

“I’m sure you only bruised his ego. Neon is a bit of a pill.”

“Sorry to hear it. Seemed like him and Lemon had history.”

Twinkleshine watched Minuette as she peered closer at whatever had her attention. “Have. It’s an ongoing mess.”

“Suck.”

“Quite.”

Minette reached a hand into the shadows.

Twinkleshine raised her voice a hair. “Minuette? What are you looking at?”

Minuette snatched her hand back like it’d been dipped in hot water. “Me? Uh. Just this suit of armor. It looks funny.”

“‘Ha-ha’ funny or ‘whoa, that’s weird,’ funny?” asked Vinyl.

Minuette shrugged, leaning back against the suit of armor. “Yes?”

As she did, she disappeared in a shriek of surprise. There was a clattering, like a drum kit falling down a flight of stone stairs.

Vinyl raced past her, diving for the shadows. The others stood frozen in stark amazement before Twinkleshine cried out, “Minnie!”

Vinyl was on the ground, pounding on the wooden floor. “Damn, damn, damn!”

Moon Dancer dropped to her knees next to her, and ran her nails along the old wood planks. “Whoa. No way.”

“What?” Lemon asked, following suit.

Twinkleshine ran her hand along Vinyl’s shoulders. “There wasn’t anything you could have done. We were—”

Vinyl smacked her hand away as she shot up. She sounded like she was trying to swallow something heavy. “I promised, didn’t I? I said I’d protect her.”

Lemon and Moon Dancer continued muttering to themselves. Lemon stood, shining her flashlight on the suit of armor.

“You did,” Twinkleshine agreed. “You failed.”

Vinyl rounded on her, tears streaming from under her shades. “How dare—”

“Do better. Help us find her. Recriminate later. Act now.”

Vinyl’s face twisted as several emotions battled for supremacy. Finally, she snapped her shades off and tossed them into her rucksack.

“Yeah. Fine.”

She stalked over to the suit of armor and punched it.

It rattled apart, falling off of its stand and clattering to the floor.

All but one item, that is. A solitary rod hung where the left arm had been, still sporting its gauntlet.

Lemon pulled this and a trap door whooshed open beneath them.

Below, bathed in the light from above, was the crumpled form of Minuette. She had landed on a carpet, but wasn’t moving.

“Minuette!” Twinkleshine called. “Can you—?”

There was a soft white blur as Vinyl leapt down.

“Are you crazy?!” shouted Moon Dancer. “How are you going to get back?”

Vinyl didn’t answer. She was bent over Minuette’s still form.

Several tense moments passed before Vinyl looked back up at the others.

“She’s okay. Probably just scared. It’s dark as night down here. I got my light, but she— Hey! Toss me her bag, will you?”

Lemon reached down to grab Minuette’s bag and the door slid shut with a rasp.

Moon Dancer grabbed the rod and pulled it down again. The door opened.

“Dang, that’s sensitive. Here…”

Vinyl positioned herself beneath the bag as Lemon dangled it down.

“Got it!”

A flashlight clicked on and swept around the room.

“Oh, wow. Girls, you need to see this.”

“Do you see a door?” asked Twinkleshine.

Vinyl turned slowly, stopping only for a moment before sweeping the rest of the room. “Yeah. A couple.”

“Map it!” shouted Moon Dancer. “We’ll try to meet up with you!”

“But where am I— are we going?”

Moon Dancer looked to Lemon.

Lemon shrugged. “There’s no basement in the blueprints.”

“What’d she say?” called Vinyl.

“Just head west! And map it! We’ll meet up!” Moon Dancer released the rod. The door slid back into place.

The ensuing silence draped around them like a fog before being broken by their nerves.

“Rope. Should have brought rope. Dammit,” Moon Dancer cursed.

“Why didn’t you tell her?” Lemon bit at her thumbnail, agitated.

Moon Dancer sighed and yanked out her flashlight. “A few reasons. One, no need to panic her. Two, as long as she heads west, she’ll keep away from the hills. No telling how far down those things go. And three…”

Lemon, who had returned to the table to gather up the blueprints, looked up. “Three?”

Moon Dancer frowned and withdrew into her sweater. “I don’t want her to know how much she scared me when she jumped in. She’s got enough to worry about with Minuette down there.”

Twinkleshine tutted softly.

Moon Dancer closed her eyes, took a slow breath, fumbled out her compass, and clicked on the flashlight.

“Let’s head west.”

Author's Note

If you're wondering what leaded came glass is, here you are!

8/28 edit: More commas! More!

I've also retooled some scenes to flow a little better. Gotta love a digital medium!

Chapter Three: Gilded Cage

They walked up the old stairs in the foyer and opened the western door. Beyond lay a long hallway with doors on either side. Some were jammed and steadfastly refused to open, no matter how the girls pulled or pushed on them. Others were locked. After checking each door to verify, they finally found one that opened into another hallway. This, too, had doors, and Twinkleshine had to keep Moon Dancer from trying each of these as well.

This hallway turned to the north, ending at a landing for a short stairwell leading down.

They quickly descended, pausing only to mark it on the blueprints Lemon had downloaded. It wasn’t on their map.

A little pit of anxiety opened at the bottom of Twinkleshine’s stomach.

It widened when Moon Dancer grumbled that over half the doors they’d passed weren’t in the official blueprints, either.

The stairs let out in another short hallway. They followed it to a door.

“Watch, this is locked, too,” Moon Dancer said cattily.

Lemon rolled her eyes as she turned the crystal doorknob.

It opened.

Beyond was a sitting room with two long couches, a loveseat, and three armchairs arrayed around the room. Books cluttered the north and west walls, The east wall was taken up entirely by a fireplace. The scent of burned wood and old books hung heavily in the air. Sunlight streaked through the grimy windows, catching the dust motes’s slow drift.

Twinkleshine traced little lines in them and tried not to think of Minuette. Hopefully, they’d find their way out of the gloom.

“You realize there’s gotta be another secret door, right?” Moon Dancer said, dropping into a chair.

“Of course,” said Twinkleshine. “It’s only a matter of finding it. Do you think it’s the only way into the basement?”

“Or basements?” said Lemon, drawing out the ‘s’. “There’s a lot of space in them thar hills.”

Moon Dancer chuckled, but a hint of panic tinged the edges.

The pit deepened almost imperceptibly.

She drifted to the north wall, and read the titles on the shelves. One bookcase was entirely dedicated to occult esoterica, while the other held nothing but scientific texts.

Behind her, Moon Dancer and Lemon Hearts continued:

“So this is it. Dead end.”

“Not necessarily,” Lemon countered. “One of those other doors might—”

“Yeah? How do we get them open? They seemed pretty stuck. Or locked. Or both.”

There was some silence. Twinkleshine ran her fingers along the hardbound books and tutted. Someone had misshelved a book called Long Lost Friend in the middle of a series of lectures on optics by Professor Crystal Prism.

She lifted it up, and thumbed through it. Strange diagrams, notes in ancient languages, and odd pressings were liberally scattered throughout. From what she could parse, it looked like it was a grimoire, a collection of spells and incantations. The earliest references dated back some four hundred years.

Lemon chuckled. “You know, Minuette probably could have picked those locks. She’s always getting the drop on Twinkle and I, putting stuff in our lockers.”

Moon Dancer snorted gently. “Yeah. Or Vinyl could have kicked one open. She’s pretty strong. It sucks not having them.”

“Yeah.”

The bookshelf on the other side of the fireplace was filled with other obscure occult texts. Twinkleshine shelved the grimoire with them, placing it between Lilum Lamenta and the Malleus Maleficarum.

There was a nearby grinding of stone on stone.

All three girls started in surprise, Lemon even letting out a little shriek.

The entire fireplace had swung outward from its wall tiles, revealing a dark, cobwebbed corridor.

The three girls shared a look.

“Well, let’s not all go at once,” Moon Dancer said, crossing to the passage. “Better to have someone out here to make sure we don’t get stuck.”

Twinkleshine shook her head. “I’m not going to allow us to split the group further. We go together or not at all.”

Lemon Hearts nodded. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Moon Dancer rolled her eyes and grabbed a thick tome off the reference shelf.

The secret door snapped shut with a boom.

Lemon jumped in surprise. Moon Dancer swore and jammed the book back into place. The door swung open again.

“Fantastic!” Moon Dancer shouted. “Fine! Let’s go.”

Twinkleshine pulled out her flashlight. Almost as one, three beams of light pierced the darkness within the passage.

She smiled faintly.

The passage traveled down a short flight of stairs, ending in a room caked with cobwebs. Beneath the layers of soft, sticky film lurked musty, moth-eaten robes. These hung on dusty wooden pegs. Below the robes sat squat footlockers. All but one stood open and empty, just as dusty as the rest of the room.

On the opposite wall was a door with an inscription in Latin. Twinkleshine traced the etched glass with a fingernail.

“Ob Futuro Nostro Fabricamus. ‘We build the future?’”

“No,” said Moon Dancer, “it’s ‘We build our future.’ The ‘ob’ is what—wait, or is it…”

She threw her hands in the air with a sigh, her beam lancing around the room like a searching eye. “Whatever, no one cares, Latin is the worst, let’s go.”

Lemon adjusted her sweater vest, and tugged it down. “After you.”

The series of corridors they entered made little sense. Some dead-ended into bare earth, while others seemed to be designed to loop back around on themselves. They even found a staircase that led to a wall of dirt after fifteen feet.

“Either this place had a wicked cave-in…” Lemon started, but trailed off as no other answer came to mind.

“Girls?” A husky voice shouted from somewhere nearby. “Doc?”

They whirled around, three lights in three directions. A few shouted curses and accidental blindings later, they found themselves shining their flashlights at the dirty form of Vinyl Scratch. Behind her, looking very much like a canary staring at a grinning cat, was Minuette.

The reunion was brief but excited. Hugs and promises were passed around as fences were mended.

“About time,” Vinyl coughed. “Good luck for us, you slamming that door a few times. Minnie heard it before I did, but yeah. Nice looking out.”

Moon Dancer froze. “What do you mean, ‘slamming?’”

It was hard to see in the dim light, but Lemon Hearts’s yellow face grew sallow and wan. “What do you mean ‘a few?’”

“I knew it. I knew it!” Minuette stamped her feet in a sudden burst of rage and fear. “We’re trapped down here. It’s got us down here and we’re stuck.”

Lemon Hearts tapped Vinyl on the shoulder and gestured with her head back the way they’d came. Together, they ran back towards the fireplace door.

Watching the two run down the corridor, Twinkleshine wrapped Minuette up in her arms and spoke softly. “No need for that, Minnie. We’re not trapped. There’s always a way out.”

Minuette squeezed Twinkleshine tightly. “I want to believe, Twinkleshine. I do. But it doesn’t want us to escape. It’s mad.”

Twinkleshine met Minuette’s frightened stare. “What’s mad?”

“It’s mad!” She continued as if Twinkleshine hadn’t spoken. “It figured out that I took something and it wants it back, but I don’t think it should have it, and—” She broke down, weeping.

“What’s mad, dear heart? You’ve got to—”

There was a shout of shock and anger from the direction the others had gone. Moon Dancer swore and chased after them.

“Should we…?” Twinkleshine started.

“Nuh-uh,” Minuette said, brushing her cheek dry. “They’re finding your entrance blocked. It’s swallowed us. We gotta find another way out.”

Twinkleshine sighed. “You don’t know that—”

Voices drifting up the tunnels silenced her. The others had returned.

“… no way that’s closed,” Lemon Hearts said, confused. “No way. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Deal with it, Hearts. It’s fact. That door is shut.” Moon Dancer spat each word like it had gone sour.

“I-impossible,” Twinkleshine said. “The only way that door opened was after each book was shelved in alphabetical order by topic. Are you saying someone undid that? It couldn’t have happened by accident. You saw those shelves.”

Moon Dancer shrugged. “Yeah, but we’ve verified. That door is shut.”

Lemon Hearts snarled incoherently. She clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and tried again.

More rage-obscured almost-words tumbled out, five at a time.

“Lemon.” Vinyl grabbed her shoulders, and shook gently. “Breathe.”

Twinkleshine felt Minuette follow Lemon’s breathing. They both seemed to do better after a few moments.

“Neon.” Lemon said around gritted teeth. “I couldn’t figure why he jumped up on that rickety old porch, but what if he was signalling someone? Fancy Pants or Jet Set’s probably in here. They yanked a book or something. It’s all Neon.”

No one said anything for a while.

Twinkleshine cleared her throat. All eyes turned to her.

“There is always an answer. I refuse to believe we’ve come this way just to—”

Minuette leapt to her feet and cried out, “Yeah! Wait! I got it! Spit!”

Twinkleshine’s lips curled up in distaste.

Lemon looked at her like she had grown a new set of eyes.

Moon Dancer licked her finger and held it out. “Got it. Breeze coming from this way. Do you think it’s the exit?”

Minuette licked her hand, holding it as high as she could before dropping it almost to the ground.

“Mmm, don’t think so. That feels like a small opening. Here, see?”

She grabbed Moon Dancer’s wrist and held it low to the ground.

“Nothing. But…”

She grabbed Moon Dancer around the waist and lifted her up.

“What are you—?!”

“Hand! Ceiling! Less tacos!”

“… Oh, hey, yeah…”

Minuette put the smaller girl down and sighed in relief. “Ow. Last time I do that for a bit. You’re heavier than you look.”

Moon Dancer stuck her tongue out at Minuette and pulled out her notebook. She flipped to a rough sketch of the basement and handed it to Vinyl.

“Where did you two land?”

Vinyl scanned the sketch and shook her head. “Mins?”

“You bet!”

Minuette took out her pencil, studied the sketch carefully, and added another wing. “I think it looked like this. But…”

She starred two rooms and drew a line between them.

“… these two are the same room and they go here,” as she drew another hallway beside them. “We landed in there, but it has like, two doors that lead in different directions but look exactly the same. So I see how that happened.”

Moon Dancer scowled at the map. “No, they don’t.”

Minuette shrugged. “Not exactly, yeah. But it’s weird and hard to explain. Point being, I think the current up top is from over there. There’s a passage out.”

Lemon looked into the darkened hallway before them, and frowned. “That trap door?”

“No, pretty sure that’s only accessible from that lever,” Vinyl said. “You don’t think—?”

Minuette nodded, and turned to the others. “Wanna see the worst thing?”

* * * *

“Ew, no forever. Are those gutters…” Lemon Hearts shuddered, rubbing her hands against her arms, as if against a sudden chill.

The light from their flashlights played over a cross between a gym shower and the nave of a cathedral. Arranged around a dark green central cushioned carpet was a hard black tile floor and water faucets. Set above those were bas-relief carvings of figures carrying wood, measuring planks, and hammering frames. Set into the opposite wall was another oak door, lurking in the shadows like it was watching them.

Narrow gutters spread across the floor like spider threads. They were bone dry, but the strange juxtaposition still set Twinkleshine on edge.

She could almost hear the echo of Minuette’s scream as she fell. She could almost see robed figures picking up her unconscious form. One of them knelt beside the cushion, and—

She arched an eyebrow and swept aside the cushion.

Below it, inlaid in the tile with gleaming gold, lurked a design resembling a cross between a squashed spider and a bullseye. At its center was a glittering crystal.

“What the heck is that?” Vinyl asked, crouching down beside the diagram.

At the same time, Moon Dancer started taking video of the room on her phone. She spoke low, describing what she was seeing. Behind her, staying in her shadow, Lemon snapped photos on her disposable camera.

Minuette hadn’t entered. She stood at the door, chewing her bottom lip.

“I think it’s for cleaning people. I remember landing on that cushion and feeling a surge run through me, like I’d touched a live wire. I had… really strange dreams.”

Vinyl snorted once in agreement. “Yeah, woke up with a shriek that made me jump. You doing okay, hero?”

Minuette grinned sheepishly.

Vinyl tilted her glasses down, and stared over them. “What?”

“You said you took something, and that something else was mad,” Twinkleshine asked. “What was it?”

Minuette shook her head and turned towards the door on the other side. “Nuh-uh. Not until we get out of here. I’m not giving it back, it doesn’t belong here.”

“But where did you take it from?”

Minuette pointed over her shoulder at an alcove. A plinth sat between two dusty wax candles on iron holders. Something had been displayed on it, once. Something green and glittering.

Something those foolish scholars at—

Twinkleshine started as if waking from a dream. “We should go.”

Moon Dancer opened the door across from them and held it as they passed through.

The hallway on the other side looked identical to the one they’d passed through moments ago. The same slight left-hand turn, the same dead-end corridors, and doors that opened into earth.

“See,” Minuette said. “It’s weird.”

Lemon called out from ahead of the others, “Hey! Stairs!”

Twinkleshine felt the cold press of gooseflesh creeping across her skin. She met Minuette’s glance and shrugged.

Minuette only looked more concerned.

Moon Dancer leafed through the increasingly dogeared map and jotted down the door.

“Up?” asked Moon Dancer.

Lemon shook her head.

Moon Dancer groaned. “Of course not.”

Vinyl glanced around at the tunnel. “This might sound weird, but I think this is the same hallway.”

Minuette nodded for a moment before shrugging. “Not exactly, but not no. It’s the same hallway, just a little… behind? Like, not a direction, but almost a state of mind.”

“That makes no sense,” grumbled Moon Dancer.

“Are we going down, girls?” Lemon called back.

Moon Dancer riffled through the map, and found Minuette’s notes. “If Hero here is right, this should… Wait.” She tapped the sketched hallway. “This doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” agreed Minuette. “But those stairs weren’t here before either, so who knows?”

Moon Dancer swore under her breath. “Witherly Manor. Gotta love it.”

They caught up to Lemon Hearts. She was leaning against an open door, with a stairwell leading further down.

“After you,” she said.

The stairs creaked and groaned alarmingly, but held.

After crossing a pair of landings with bricked-up passages, they reached another door.

Vinyl pulled it open with a grunt.

At the same time, Lemon looked up and held a finger to her mouth. “Sh!”

Dust trickled down as a board creaked above them.

Lemon looked back to the others, wide-eyed.

Moon Dancer mouthed the words, “We’re not alone.”

“Neon,” Lemon mouthed back. “Gotta be.”

“Payback?” asked Vinyl silently.

Lemon nodded.

Vinyl cracked her knuckles. She squared her stance and gestured to the empty hallway behind her. The others filed past her, preparing to take pictures as Vinyl taught him a lesson.

They gingerly shut the door behind them and waited.

The boards creaked again, this time closer.

“On the count of three,” said Moon Dancer. She had one hand on the doorknob as she pressed herself against the wall.

They all nodded in time with the count.

“One…”

A creak and the scraping of metal on wood.

“Two…”

The shadows under the door darkened as someone walked up to it.

Moon Dancer felt the doorknob turn slowly in her hand.

“Three!”

She wrenched the doorknob against the other’s turn and shoved the door open.

Illuminated in the flash of three cameras stood a tall, gaunt figure. Almost at the same time as the flashes, it opened its mouth and roared, flooding the room with eerie green light.

Vinyl shrank back away from it, shielding the others with her body .

Lemon and Twinkleshine screamed.

Minuette shouted something, but it was lost in the chaos.

But Moon Dancer didn’t move. Her thick glasses reflected the green light.

The thing before them, a full head and a half taller than any of them, raised an arm with a jerk. Long, thin triangular blades snapped into place, glittering in the sickly green light pouring from its mouth. Each one of them could see the others reflected briefly in the talons’ mirror sheen.

Moon Dancer still didn’t move, staring up at the creature with a look that could either have been joy or madness.

“It’s…” she started.

Vinyl grabbed her arm and yanked her to the ground, just as the form swiped at her.

The blades whistled through the air above them.

“Run!” Minuette shouted, then turned and sprinted ahead.

They did, with Vinyl carrying a stunned Moon Dancer.

The Wraith of Witherly Manor pursued, its long claws digging furrows into the hardwood floors.

The hallway twisted on itself, angling with a hard left away from the other doors. Minuette pushed off the wall to assist with the sharp turn, but the others weren’t so quick on their feet. Lemon tripped and would have fallen, but for Twinkleshine.

They breathlessly shared a nod before chasing after the others.

Vinyl gritted her teeth as she hoisted Moon Dancer up into a fireman’s carry. “Minuette’s right, Doc. We gotta talk diet.”

Moon Dancer said nothing, her glasses sliding off her expressionless face.

Twinkleshine caught her glasses as they fell, tucked them into a side pocket on her backpack, and slammed the door behind them.

“C’mon! Move it! I think I got this figured out!” called Minuette from far ahead. She was holding open a door at the end of the hallway.

As Twinkleshine watched, the library beyond flickered twice, and became another room entirely.

This room was lined with shelves of black crystalline growths. An intricate design had been carved in the floor. A large, slightly ajar, metal door dominated the other wall.

“How—?”

“No time! Just go!”

Behind them, the door shattered into splinters. The glass frames of the portraits glinted in the sudden green light as the Wraith roared.

They piled through, racing to the other door. It shifted slowly, but ground to a halt.

“Dang.”

Vinyl passed Moon Dancer to Lemon, and ran back to Minuette. She braced against the wooden door, and gestured to the metal one across the room.

“Do the thing you did!” she said.

Minuette shook her head. “Fixed point! Can’t—!”

The upper panels of the door splintered as the Wraith’s claws punched through it. Shards of oak rained on Vinyl’s head.

“—Damn it!”

Lemon passed Moon Dancer to Twinkleshine, who set her down gently on the floor. She patted her cheek gently, whispering softly.

Lemon and Minuette pushed a fully-loaded shelf over to Vinyl.

“Scootch,” Lemon said. “Carefully.”

The door bulged inward as the Wraith threw its bulk against it. For a moment, the green light shone around the cracks. Vinyl pressed against the door until it stopped shaking.

“Now, hurry.”

The three shoved the shelf against the door and ran to the other two.

“We gotta go,” said Vinyl.

“Is she okay?” asked Lemon, glancing back towards Moon Dancer.

“We can find out if we get out of here.”

Vinyl crossed back to the metal door, placed one foot on the door jamb, and yanked hard. It squealed once, the ancient rusty hinges seizing again.

The gap had been widened, but not nearly enough.

The shelf shuddered as the door was struck again. A large crystal fell to the ground and broke.

“That’s probably not good,” muttered Minuette.

Vinyl took a deep breath, gave a couple practice tugs, and then really leaned into it.

The gap suddenly widened with another screech. It slid open another foot.

Twinkleshine glanced down at Moon Dancer. “If we’re careful—”.

She was cut off as another slam against the door shook more crystals to shatter against the floor.

“Shoot. Here…”

Together, Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts carried Moon Dancer over to the door.

Minuette slipped through the gap, followed by Vinyl.

As Twinkleshine passed Moon Dancer through the gap, the shelf fell to the floor with a crash.

The wooden door was in pieces, but still held. The Wraith roared through the holes in the paneling and started tearing through the rest.

“Go, hurry!” Twinkleshine pushed Lemon through.

Vinyl gripped the door handle on the other side and readied herself.

Twinkleshine glanced down at her chest and sighed inwardly.

Gingerly, she tried slipping through.

She made it halfway before getting caught.

The wooden door fell to pieces.

She took a deep breath, exhaled, and pressed her way through with a groan of pain.

She felt something seize the brim of her hat, tearing it free from her head.

At the same time, Vinyl yanked the door shut with a boom that echoed in the darkness.

For the first time, Twinkleshine realized it was freezing.

“Where a-are w-we?” she asked.

Author's Note

Latin. :pinkiesick:

Don't worry, Moon Dancer! We'll get the actual translation soon!

Chapter One: Stolen Moments

An autumn wind hissed along the footpath scattering leaves around the booted feet of Cherry Berry. The bare limbs of the trees surrounding her twisted in the wind, clawing desperately at the new moon. It had been over an hour since she left the main road and almost thirty minutes since she’d seen any signs of habitation. These backwoods were popular party spots for her classmates at Canterlot High, but dang, it was easy to get lost.

“Come on. It can’t be that much farther…”

She pushed aside another curtain of branches and stepped past it, taking care not to tangle her blonde hair in the cobwebbed twigs. The clearing ahead looked like every other one she’d seen so far.

“Berryshine!”

Her voice sounded oddly muffled in the crisp air, but she strained to hear any response.

Nothing.

She pushed through the glade, grumbling as dry branches tugged at her hair and clothes. She should have gone with her sister, wine coolers or not. Better to risk getting caught with alcohol than getting lost in this dumb forest. Stupid party. Stupid sister. Stupid Shadowbolts—

A chill ran down her back as a small thought blossomed into a sudden concern. Had this been a prank on her and the other Wondercolts? Sure, after the abortive Friendship Games, the students at Cystic Prep—no, Crystal Prep, Cherry, olive branches—had said that they wanted to mend fences. It’d been that weird girl, the one who looked like Twilight Sparkle but had those glasses and hid from everything, who’d suggested a get-together. Pinkie latched onto the idea of a party of course, but it had been a Shadowbolt, a tall guy who never took off his dark shades, who’d suggested moving from the usual Sugarcube Corner to the old Witherly manor grounds.

Neon, or whatever his name was, told them about the large untended fields out near the old, abandoned house. Vinyl had flipped at the chance for a large-scale rave, and Pinkie couldn’t wait to plan a harvest dance near a “real, honest-to-spookiness haunted house,” and that was that.

Had Neon lied? Had the Wondercolts been lured into the woods as some kind of cruel joke?

Cherry shivered as a cold breeze cut through her fashionably thin sweater. Nervously, she checked her phone.

9:29 PM. Twenty-two percent battery. No signal.

She felt a cold panic settle around her stomach, but pushed it aside.

She’d find them. She had to.

Sister of one of the most popular kids in school? She had to.

In her desperation, she didn’t see the rocky outcropping in the gloom before she tripped over it. With a sudden shriek, she tumbled end over end, snagging in brambles and fallen branches.

She hadn’t fallen very far, glancing back up the hillside. A short drop of some fifteen feet.

Sure felt like longer, though.

She glanced around, and froze. Off in the distance, a squat manor sat brooding over the valley she had fallen into. The waxy yellow moonlight spread over a vast cornfield to her right.

This had to be it. She broke into a run towards the house. She’d get a good vantage point, scout the valley, and find the dang party. She could almost taste Berryshine’s coolers.

Ahead of her, the corn parted. A tall figure stood slightly stooped with arms folded across his chest. It crept out of the moldering fields and gazed toward the house.

A jolt of fear spiked through her heart before she realized she was being silly. It was probably just a Shadowbolt. Or some socially maladjusted Wondercolt who didn’t get the memo. Blue and yellow. Show of spirit.

She realized she was twisting her blue jumper in her sweaty hands.

“Hey,” she said, her voice catching slightly.

The tall figure didn’t move. He didn’t seem to hear her.

“Hey!” she called. She might not be on the student council anymore, but no one ignored Cherry Berry. “Is this where the party is?”

The figure let one arm drop from its chest. As it swung loose, it unfolded, stretching out a second elbow. And then another. Its arm was now as long as it was tall.

She watched, horrified, as the figure— the creature— snapped its far-too-long arm back up, unfolding wickedly glistening claws from its slender fingers. They didn’t slide like cat’s claws, but snapped into place like blades.

He— it— turned to face her. A baleful green glow from around its mouth drowned out any other features.

She screamed then, for all the good it did.

* * * *

The normally jubilant air at Sugarcube Corner was thick with the anger bottled within its walls. All around the cafe, lines had been drawn, and ranks were forming. Wondercolt against Shadowbolt.

It was the bad old days all over again.

Minuette hoped last weekend would help bridge the gulf between Crystal Prep and Canterlot High, but a girl from Canterlot High had disappeared at the rave. It was five long days of search parties and public service assemblies before she’d been found unconscious ten miles from the party grounds. Her clothes were torn and filthy, except for a Crystal Prep blazer wrapped around her shoulders.

It had been clean.

Worse, it’d been pristine, except for a single cut that had severed the name tag tucked into the collar of each jacket.

The Wondercolts had leapt to the logical conclusion.

In response, the Shadowbolts had circled the wagons.

The longer the girl stayed in her coma, the worse it got.

In other words, all the goodwill they’d built up over the last few weeks after the Friendship Games evaporated like the last memories of a good dream under the morning sun.

She had just started having fun with the Wondercolts, too, that was the worst of it. Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, that big guy, those two little guys… That girl with the eyes, whatever her name was… they were a blast to hang out with, and now…

She slumped into a chair and rested her head on the plastic divider.

An annoyed groan oozed from behind what she now realized was a laptop screen. A shorter girl with unkempt bangs of red and purple tied into a topknot far more functional than fashionable glared out from behind thick glasses taped together in the middle.

“Hey,” Minuette said noncommittally. She nudged her two-tone blue hair out of her eyes and straightened her Crystal Prep uniform.

“Why are you at my table?” The other girl was almost swallowed in a thick purple sweater at least two sizes too large for her.

“Dunno,” Minuette said, drawing herself up and settling into the chair. “I needed a place and this was here.”

“Go away. You’re supposed to be over there,” she said, gesturing to the other Shadowbolts. She kicked her red Mary Janes against her chair legs in agitation.

“What, is this a Wondercolt table?”

“No, it’s a ‘Moon Dancer’ table. Unless you’re Moon Dancer, shoo.”

Minuette seized Moon Dancer’s hand, eliciting a shout of surprise. As she spoke, she shook it vigorously. “Well, put her there, Moon Dancer. The name’s Minuette. Or Minnie, if you’re into that whole ‘brevity’ thing. Pleased to meet you!”

“Leggo!” Moon Dancer shouted, trying to yank her hand free from Minuette’s grip. “Let! Me—!”

Minuette complied. Moon Dancer fell backward, arms flailing. She landed in her seat with a thud and tipped precariously backwards.

Before she could fall, a slender girl with delicate pink hair and dressed in the Crystal Prep mulberry uniform caught her chair.

“Minuette, be careful. You could hurt someone.”

“Put me down!” Moon Dancer hissed, a red-and-purple ball of indignation.

“Oh! Moon Dancer, this is Twinkleshine, she’s my friend.”

“Minder.” Twinkleshine corrected absently.

“That, yes. But we’re friends!”

“Put! Me—”

Twinkleshine slid Moon Dancer’s chair back to the table and set a steaming mug in front of her. “You’ll have to forgive her. Minuette means well, but her sense of tact is somewhat damaged.”

Minuette made a rude sound. “Who needs that? That’s for people who are uncomfortable saying what’s on their mind. Ooh, is that tea?”

Twinkleshine batted her friend’s hands away from the mug. “Not for you. This is for the nice girl you just terrorized. Miss, please accept—”

Moon Dancer hopped up onto her chair and looked Twinkleshine straight in the eye. “Fine! Just go away! You’re interrupting something vital, and I won’t lose more time!”

Twinkleshine joined Minuette on the other side, closed her eyes, and blew on her coffee. The steam swirled around her face and vanished.

Moon Dancer’s eyes flashed from one to the other, increasingly agitated.

Minuette braced her cheekbones on her palms and gazed intently at Moon Dancer.

Twinkleshine dipped a biscotti in her coffee and twisted it gently.

“You’re not leaving,” Moon Dancer grumbled.

“Nuh-uh,” Minuette said, her grin framed by her fingers.

Moon Dancer groaned, grabbed the steaming mug, and settled back into her chair. “What will it take to make you go away?”

Twinkleshine opened one eye and watched Minuette carefully.

“You don’t look like the other Wondercolts I’ve met,” Minuette said.

“Big shock,” Moon Dancer said, turning back to her laptop. “That’s because I’m not. I’ve attended Everton Independent Study for three years now, right out of middle school.”

“Yowza! So you’re like, super smart! That’s great! What’re you working on?”

Moon Dancer closed her laptop with a clunk and glanced away from them, blushing slightly. “Forget it. It’d bore you. Or you’d think I’m crazy.”

“Nah.”

“You would! Everyone else does.”

“Try us,” Twinkleshine said before biting into her coffee-infused biscotti.

Moon Dancer slid her glasses off and cleaned them against her sweater. “What do you know about the paranormal?”

Twinkleshine settled her cup into its saucer and set them on the table. “Miss Dancer, three scant weeks ago, my friend and I witnessed a classmate become a demon bent on controlling magic through rifts she tore in reality. I imagine you’ll not find a better ear than a Shadowbolt’s.”

Minuette nodded. “Except for maybe a Wondercolt’s. They’ve been kicking magic butt all year.”

Twinkleshine raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. “I suppose.”

“You’re messing with me.”

“Call me a janky rope, then, because I’m a frayed knot.” Minuette giggled.

Twinkleshine and Moon Dancer rolled their eyes.

“I’m so gonna regret this.”

Moon Dancer snapped open her laptop and typed away on her keyboard. After a moment, she spun it around with a flourish. The screen displayed the news articles about Cherry Berry’s disappearance, a map of Whitetail National Forest with a portion outlined in red, and what looked like pictures of straight lines at odd angles arranged around a green light.

Moon Dancer hopped back onto her seat and loomed over the laptop. The screen’s glow cast eerie shadows across her face.

“Have you ever heard of the Wraith of Witherly Manor?”

* * * *

“No.”

“Aw, come on!” Minuette said. She fell backwards into a pile of leaves, scattering them across the sidewalk. “Don’t be such an old lemon, Lemon!”

Twinkleshine chuckled and brushed a leaf out of her hair. “It sounded interesting, Lemon. Minuette notwithstanding—”

“Minuette notwith-falling-into-leaves!”

“That. I know how much you enjoyed working with Twilight and her new friends on your thesis.”

Lemon Hearts stopped walking and slung her bag over her shoulder. Her dark blue hair cascaded across her back as she undid the severe bun she kept it in during school hours.

“She seems better. Happier,” Lemon said around her scrunchy. “Yeah, it was great to see that Twi is doing alright. I wish we could have been there for her back before her transfer, but she’s gone. I don’t see how chasing urban legends with some girl you just met is going to help.”

She brushed some leaves out of her hair and sighed. “It’s not going to bring her back and it’s not going to make me feel better about leaving her to the wolves.”

Minuette made several annoyed sounds that were almost words.

Twinkleshine stepped between the two and placed her hand on Lemon’s shoulder. Minuette jumped to her feet and raced up behind Twinkleshine.

“Lemon, how do you think she feels? She’s the only Shadowbolt there. She’s friends with the main clique there and is the only one of us any of them will see. You know how isolating that can be.”

Lemon Hearts winced and shrank into her blazer a little.

“If we clear our school’s name, don’t you think that would help them accept her?”

Lemon Hearts sighed. Minuette held her breath.

Twinkleshine smiled.

“You’re the worst friends,” Lemon said.

“Yay!” Minuette shouted, suddenly hugging them both.

Lemon made a sound like a frog being stepped on as she got caught in the bear hug.

Twinkleshine cleared her throat. “Minuette. Boundaries.”

“Eep.” She let them go, clutching her arms to her chest. “Sorry.”

Lemon struggled to regain her breath.

“We’re meeting Moon Dancer at Hayseed’s Burgers at six. She says she’s got a friend at CHS who’s willing to help.” Twinkleshine checked her makeup in a small palm mirror and smiled faintly. “I’m going to be there at five. Can I count on you girls to join me?”

Lemon nodded.

“Be there like hair on a bear!” Minuette shouted. She had skipped almost a full block away.

Lemon Hearts smiled wanly and turned back to Twinkleshine. “Thanks for this. Sorry I’m such a terrible friend.”

“No, honey. You’re just tired. This has been a weird couple of weeks. Go home, take a shower, and come with us.”

Twinkleshine laughed, turning towards her own path home. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll even have fun.”

* * * *

The Shadowbolts arrived early, all the better to scout out their new acquaintance. One could learn a lot about someone by how they entered a room.

They had been scooped. Or perhaps they’d been had. Hayseed’s was jumping with a massive party inside.

The only seats were behind a large sign advertising the restaurant’s fifth anniversary. Apparently, Mr. Turnip Truck, the owner, had managed to rope DJ Pon-3 into performing for the event.

Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and Minuette had ordered a large platter of fries and slowly worked through their portion as the concert finally came to a close.

Minuette, who had been bopping her head to the beat and dunking her fries into her chocolate shake by the handful, looked a little crestfallen. “Maybe the crowd scared her off.”

Lemon Hearts, choosing the more traditional single dip of ketchup, said, “Or you did. I bet she’s not used to people being so darn outgoing. Or bubbly. You weirdo.”

Twinkleshine set her phone on the table with a clack. “Six on the dot. She’s—”

A teal green backpack that was more duct tape than canvas slammed into a chair. Moon Dancer sat down next to it. “—Right here. I did say six, didn’t I?”

There were reluctant sounds of agreement.

“Good. Hope you enjoyed the show. Running tech for Vinyl is a pain in my butt and I don’t need the added hassle of complaining EDM nerds.”

The three Shadowbolts blinked at her, varying levels of surprise on their faces.

“What?”

“You,” Lemon Hearts said.

“Run lights and sound,” continued Twinkleshine.

“For DJ Pon-3?!” gushed Minuette. “Yowza! You’re my new best friend!”

“Ah, dang!” said a dusky voice from behind the trio. “What does that make me, then?”

Behind them, lit by the pulsing stage lights, was Vinyl Scratch. Her trademark purple sunglasses gleamed as she snapped them off. She pulled up a chair next to Moon Dancer and flopped into it.

“Ah, great to be off my feet,” Vinyl said.

Minuette made an excited noise and rocked her chair in a quick staccato rhythm.

Twinkleshine caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

Minuette groaned, but stopped.

“Now,” Vinyl continued, “Moony here says you three want to prove Crystal Prep didn’t have anything to do with Cherry’s abduction or her coma. Is that right?”

Twinkleshine took a dainty bite of a fry, and pushed the platter towards the others. “We do. It’s uncharacteristic of someone who studied at CPH.”

“And if it turns out you’re wrong? That you go to school with a monster?”

Twinkleshine pressed the memory of the terrifying visage of the beast who had rent realities apart out of her mind, and met Vinyl’s gaze. “We take them down.”

Slowly, Vinyl met each of the other Shadowbolts’s gaze, and nodded. “Then I’m in. This whole feud was finally starting to die, and now this. So. Doc, what do you got?”

While the four were talking, Moon Dancer had set up a small projector. She aimed it at the copious white space on the back of the fifth anniversary poster.

Twinkleshine almost choked on her water. Moon Dancer had planned for them to sit here. The whole concert layout had been designed to allow only one large table away from the crowd to be available. The large poster blocking the view of the stage meant only people not interested in the concert would be seated here.

People like them.

A newfound respect for the scruffy nerd blossomed.

An image of a slender figure shrouded in shadows appeared on the rear of the poster. The only thing in focus in the picture was the glinting metal on the thing’s hands. They looked like claws or knives.

Or both.

Everything else was cloaked in the heavy shadows surrounding the brilliant green light in the center of its face.

“Ladies, this is the only known picture of what local folklore named the Wraith of Witherly Manor. Twinkleshine, Minuette, you may remember our chat at Sugarcube Corner, but for Vinyl and… what’s your name?”

Lemon Hearts sputtered on her soda. “Oh! Uh, Lemon Hearts. Call me Lemon, everyone does. Nice to—”

“I don’t care,” Moon Dancer said. “For Vinyl and Lemon, I’m going to recap some.”

She clicked her laptop’s mouse. The picture changed to a family portrait in the style of the mid-nineteenth century. A large man with a hawk-like nose loomed over his two children, a boy and a girl. His wife, a thin slip of a woman, hugged the edge of the canvas, almost entirely pressed out of the frame.

“This is Mothwing Witherly, patriarch of the Witherly clan and the last to truly bear the name. Back about as far as records go, his family owned practically all of the land our state now occupies. However, by old Mothy’s time, generations of bad management had left him with only…”

Another picture, this of the marked area of the national forest.

“... this much of his ancestral land remaining. Mothwing wasn’t a weak man. Unlike his forefathers, he commanded a lot of respect and used it to brutal effect.”

The slide advanced, showing a newspaper article. The headline read, “Witherly Wins Election, Vows Reform.” In smaller print, it continued, “Gubernatorial Candidates Still Missing.”

“Wow. That’s… overt,” mused Twinkleshine.

“Got it. Bad dude in life, possibly bad dude in death.” Vinyl said through a handful of fries. “Where does this meet up with Cherry Berry?”

Moon Dancer bounced a fry off of Vinyl’s nose. “Getting there. Hush.”

She clicked the mouse several times, skipping eight or nine slides.

Twinkleshine frowned. One could not make bricks without clay. Perhaps she could get Moon Dancer to send her a copy of the presentation and materials.

Moon Dancer stopped on a picture of a daguerreotype of Mothwing Witherly’s scowling face behind bars.

“Is this—? Okay.” Moon Dancer ruffled through her notes, and took a deep breath. “Okay. Point is, after a few terms as governor, Witherly got nailed selling public land to himself. When the land assessor who caught him disappeared, he was arrested and tried. Nothing stuck, but he still lost a lot of credibility. All the land deals he’d done reverted back to the state, and he retired from public life.”

The picture changed again, now to a large manor overlooking a valley. In the distance, Canterlot itself could be seen.

Twinkleshine had the distinctly unpleasant impression of a large toad squatting over a bog.

“He lived out the rest of his life here, jealously guarding the rest of his holdings from developers. Even after he died, his will had left the land in trust so that no one but an heir of the Witherlys could claim it. If one didn’t return in one hundred years from the date of his death, the land was to be burned and salted. Then, and only then, would it revert to the state.”

“Harsh,” Vinyl said, the last of the fries disappearing into her mouth.

“Hi, me, Lemon again. So, Cherry stumbles onto this guy’s land and just, what, gets kidnapped by his ghost? Is that wraith-whatever Mothwing’s ghost?”

Moon Dancer smiled and clicked her mouse again.

This was a collage of five people dressed in an older style. Three boys and two girls, each in the Canterlot High colors, smiled at the cameras. Underneath each was a name and age.

They had been about the age of the Shadowbolts seated at the table.

“About twenty years ago, a group of students from Canterlot High tried to explore the manor house. They’d been dared to by their rivals at Crystal Prep. On Nightmare Night, they entered the Witherly manor to take a picture of themselves in Mothwing’s personal study. That was where the police had found his body. The thought was that the haunting would be strongest there.”

She clicked her mouse again.

A picture of a hospital room with five occupied beds filled their vision. The sheets, bandages, and tubes made it hard to determine the genders, but something very bad had happened to the occupants.

“They were found three days later after the Shadowbolts confessed to daring them to trespass.”

Minuette swallowed audibly. “So,” she started with a catch in her voice. After clearing her throat, she continued. “Were they okay? Like, they all… lived?”

Moon Dancer shut off the projector.

“Anyone who knows isn’t talking. Due to the fact that all parties involved were minors, not to mention the scandal with Crystal Prep, the media was kept out of it. The news only reported that there were no charges being pressed against the Shadowbolts. The case file on their attack is still open. I can’t even get a glimpse of it.”

“And yet, there’s a picture,” said Twinkleshine.

“There is.” Moon Dancer adjusted her glasses, and slid her laptop into her backpack. “I don’t want to say where I got that. Might not have been entirely legal.”

Lemon dribbled the last of her soda into her mouth and sighed. “So, let me get this straight. You think the ghost of some old jerk hurt this CHS student, what’s-her-name, Cherry. How? This whole thing seems… I don’t know. Really far-fetched.”

Moon Dancer took off her glasses and closed her eyes. “Look. We’re randomly generated carbon lifeforms hurtling through time and space at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour on a silicate rock. That rock is tethered to a tiny ball of flaming gas in the middle of nowhere in an unfathomable universe.”

She put her glasses back on and peered through them, questioningly. “From what Twinkleshine told me, you girls have seen things. Is this too far removed from your own experience?”

The room was now very quiet. The waiter refreshed their drinks twice before the silence was broken.

Lemon frowned. “From what I’ve seen, yeah, this isn’t—”

Moon Dancer dropped her head to the table. “Great, another flipping skeptic.”

Lemon Hearts bounced a ketchup packet off of Moon Dancer’s topknot.

Moon Dancer shot up, face red.

“Hush. I wasn’t finished. This isn’t like the incident with Twilight Sparkle’s evil side, or that other demon girl at CHS, Sunbeam-whatever. They used magic rooted in emotion. Something about friendship, or the lack thereof. I don’t know what kind of magic this is. I don’t know if this is magic.”

She shook the ice in her cup and took a swallow. “But.”

“‘But?’” Moon Dancer asked, a faint tinge of hope in her voice.

Lemon set her empty cup down with a click. “I’m willing to find out.”

Author's Note

8/28 Edit - A polish pass before the new chapter drops. So many removed unnecessary commas...